You Can’t Help a Candidate Who Won’t Help Himself

Another week of mostly brutal polls for Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton has led the past fourteen national polls; with Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein in the mix, Trump is struggling to hit 40 percent in most polls. Clinton has a small but consistent lead in Ohio. There’s a little more variety in the most recent polls in Florida, but the average is about the same, a small lead for Clinton. She’s got a larger and steady lead in Pennsylvania, and about the same size lead in Wisconsin.

In the Senate races, the news is a little better for Republicans. In Florida, Marco Rubio continues to enjoy a consistent lead over either Democratic challenger. In Ohio, Rob Portman’s consistent lead over former governor Ted Strickland is one of the cycle’s most pleasant surprises for the GOP. Maybe it helps when your opponent is a classless ninny:

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democratic Senate candidate, has apologized for cheering the timing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

“My friends,” the former governor said Monday at an Ohio AFL-CIO event in the Cleveland area, “a lot of average citizens out there don’t understand the importance of that court.

“I mean, the death of Scalia saved labor from a terrible decision,” Strickland continued, as his audience clapped and laughed. “And I don’t wish anyone ill, but it happened at a good time, because once that decision had been made it would have been tough to reverse it.”

Portman seems to be immune from Trump’s troubles in his state, but sadly for the GOP, in Pennsylvania Pat Toomey doesn’t seem to be able to keep his head above water. He’s narrowly trailed the last four polls.

We’re moving Pennsylvania from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic in the presidential race, which is where we had it as of a couple of months ago. This doesn’t change our overall total of 347 electoral votes for Clinton and 191 for Trump — precisely where our map has been since we unveiled it March 31… We now have 269 electoral votes — just one short of the magic number of 270 — rated as Likely or Safe Democratic.

Trump is in Florida today and Pennsylvania tomorrow, and Pence is in Wisconsin. But there are some unnerving indicators that the Trump campaign is still thinking of spending time and resources in one of those deep blue states:

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is beefing up its Connecticut presence with the hiring of a new state director and plans for a rally.

Ben Proto, Trump’s new state director, declined comment. An email to the campaign’s national press office was not returned.

J.R. Romano, executive director of the Connecticut Republican Party, said the Trump campaign is seeking a venue for a rally, possibly this weekend, but nothing has been finalized.

“There is a willingness for Donald Trump to come back to Connecticut,” Romano said. “It means that Connecticut’s in play. The Democrats in this state may not want to see it but it’s true.”

Recommended Articles

Most Popular

Dear Reader (And especially Martha McSally’s dog),
As I often note, I increasingly tend to see the political scene as a scripted reality show in which the writers don’t flesh out the dialogue so much as move characters into weird, wacky, confrontational, or embarrassing positions. It’s a lot like The ...
Read More

The Department of Education has issued its long-awaited proposed regulations reforming sexual-assault adjudications on college campus. Not only will these rules restore basic due process and fairness to college tribunals, but they also — given how basic the changes are — highlight just how ridiculous ...
Read More

Jeff Flake may be leaving the Senate soon, but he’s determined that his exit will be one of non-stop moral posturing.
The Arizona senator is best remembered at this point for his last-minute delay of the Judiciary Committee’s approval of Justice Brett Kavanaugh when -- along with his pal Senator Chris ...
Read More

President Trump has announced his support for a proposal to ease federal sentencing laws that proponents call the “FIRST STEP Act” -- and that Senator Tom Cotton has tartly labeled the “jailbreak” bill. There may not be much time for debate, since the bill’s ideologically eclectic array of champions ...
Read More

Today, across Twitter, I began to see a number of people condemning the Trump administration (and Betsy DeVos, specifically) for imposing a new definition of sexual assault on campus so strict that it would force women to prove that they were so harassed that they'd been chased off campus and couldn't return. ...
Read More